I may not act like a victim but I still feel the knife on my face

EXCLUSIVE Stabbed 32 times but brave Amber clung on for her life

The terrible physical scars have faded and Amber Keeney's teenage giggles suggest she hasn't a care in the world.

But the pretty student is privately battling to come to terms with the horrific knife attack she suffered at the hands of her boyfriend.

Edward Bell lured Amber, then aged 15, into a deserted wood before subjecting her to a 20-minute assault with a 10in carving knife, stabbing her 32 times.

When police found her an hour later, slumped in a blood-soaked heap on the road, they didn't expect her to survive.

But Amber is now at college and wants to be an art therapist.

And next Saturday, she and her mum Caroline, 37, will join The Mirror's People's March to make a stand against the recent knife epidemic to hit Britain.

Amber, now 17, says: "It's a really good cause and seeing everyone coming together will hopefully be a support for the families who have lost loved ones.

"I don't look like a victim, I don't act like a victim. So people either forget or don't realise what I've been through.

"But just because I'm trying to get on with everything normally doesn't mean I'm not still struggling inside.

"I see a counsellor, I still get night terrors and night sweats, I find it difficult to trust people and I can't go anywhere on my own.

"I can still feel the knife across my face."

It was a week before Christmas 2006 when Amber went to meet onoff boyfriend Bell, then 17, at Waterford Heath, near her home in Bengeo, Hertfordshire.

Unbeknown to her, Bell had heard a false rumour that Amber had Aids.

The first she knew anything was wrong was when she felt the knife plunge into her back.

"It felt like a punch only I knew it was worse than that," she says.

"It wasn't painful straight away, the pain comes later. I started trying to kick him off, but I wasn't strong enough. And I knew I was in the middle of nowhere.

No one was going to hear me screaming."

Bell continued his attack, ignoring terrified Amber's desperate pleas for him to stop.

He slashed her face and neck and stabbed her in the chest. Then, pausing for a second, he looked at her straight, touched her gently on the face, before plunging the knife straight into her eye.

Amber says: "I was screaming, asking him why he was doing this. I spat in his face.

"I tried to play dead at one point and I think he fell for it. But then he stabbed me again and I flinched so he knew I was still alive."

When Bell finally ran off, Amber knew she would have to move into the open if anyone was going to find her.

Although bleeding heavily, she began to crawl along the ground towards the row of houses she could see in the distance.

"I picked up all my belongings and put them back in my handbag," she says.

"It seems like a bizarre thing to do but it's funny how your mind works."

Amber staggered out into the open before collapsing. She dragged herself a further 100metres but was in excruciating pain.

"I could feel it in my chest and stomach. I could feel the blood. It was seeping out all over and was keeping me warm.

And then I saw the police lights and knew it was finally over."

Straight after the attack, Bell had gone to the pub and told a friend he had murdered Amber. The friend drove Bell to the police station where he confessed. By the time mum Caroline arrived at the hospital, Amber was having chest drains inserted and being prepared for extensive surgery. Mum-of-five Caroline says: "I could hear her screams as I ran down the corridor.

"When I opened the door, she was on the bed with her legs up and her head down.

"The nurse said: 'Amber, your mum's here.' And she looked up.

"One side of her face was missing. You could see right inside her cheek. Both sides of her mouth had been slashed open. Her eyes were black and one had been sliced.

"She had dry blood all over her neck where Bell had cut her throat six times.

"All I wanted to do was give her a cuddle.

The nurse said I could hold her legs. So I hugged them and didn't want to ever let go."

Surgeons worked for 10 hours to save Amber's life and by the following afternoon, Caroline was told she was making fantastic progress. Remarkably, Amber made a good enough recovery to be allowed home six days later in time for Christmas.

She even asked to return to school straight after the festive break, determined to complete her GCSEs.

"I just wanted normality," she says. "I didn't want people to treat me any different to before. And anyway If I'd stayed off school I would have just been bored in the house."

Bell pleaded guilty to attempted murder at St Albans crown court and in April this year was detained under the Mental Health Act after being diagnosed with schizophrenia.

His pal James Galloway, who Amber claims was present throughout the attack, was also charged with attempted murder.

But he walked free after the judge halted the trial halfway through and Bell refused to give evidence against his mate in a retrial.

Galloway lives a couple of hundred metres away from Amber and her family and they regularly see him in the area.

Bell, Amber says, had never given any indication of what he was capable of.

"He was fine. He was happy. There were no signs of violence or any sort of anger.

"He smoked cannabis and would occasionally take ecstasy and cocaine. But no one saw anything dangerous about him.

"I don't have any feelings towards him. No anger or hate. Just nothing."

Despite what she'd been through, Amber managed to do well in her GCSEs and is studying Art and Design. She hopes to become an art therapist helping disadvantaged and troubled youngsters express themselves through art.

Bright and articulate, she has clear ideas on how communities can work together to reduce knife crime.

She says: "It's got to be more than stopping and searching kids for knives. There needs to be more things for kids to do.

"And we've got to teach children how to believe in themselves and give them opportunities so they see that knives aren't the answer. They think they're acting hard or protecting themselves but they're just adding to the problem.

"I'd also encourage parents to have honest and direct relationships with their children. Know who your child's friends are. Even if you don't like the friends, they can keep an eye on what's going on." Caroline believes The People's March is going to be an emotional experience for both her and Amber. "There's nothing sadder than kids killing kids," she says.

"It's got to stop and that's why it's so important for me as a mum to be there. It's about making a stand. We've had enough.

"I think society has become more greedy, more selfish and that has affected the way our children behave.

"I have to know where Amber is every minute. If she's late home or doesn't answer her phone I panic but I can't wrap her up in cotton wool."

Amber hopes her dreadful memories will fade. She says: "I think I'm lucky. I don't know how I survived but I did and so I'm going to make sure I never waste a day. Life carries on."

I was screaming, asking him why he was doing this. He stabbed me again and again.